Updating Cyber/Digital Careers Guidance for the Age of Augmented Intelligence
The move of policy responsibility for Digital Skills from DSIT to DCMS, further away away from the mainstream of UK skills policy, is taking place at a time when applications to go to University to study computing are falling, against a continuing rise for applications to study other STEM subjects.
Meanwhile well known cyber/digital consultancies, cloud, outsourcing, software and service providers are cutting 10% (and more) from their global workforces and equally well known Universities are facing mounting deficits and increasing pressures to cull unpopular and/or unpopular courses.
The July 16th release of data on undergraduate applications from UCAS indicates that pupils and parents are reading press cover abut the impact of AI on coding, pen testing and other routine, entry level digital/cyber jobs. Applications for Engineering and Technology are up by nearly 40,000 (over 14%). Those for Computing are down over 10,000.
Fewer than 50 organisations account for most UK cyber/digital trainee recruitment. Most plan ahead and their recruitment and training strategies today appear very different to two years ago. They are looking for the skills to use augmented intelligence for data analysis and apply the results in a wide variety of applications from policy formation to personal care, not just the automation routine functions, including “lanyard jobs”.
Most cyber/digital careers guidance was already out of date and needs to brought into line with their current plans and forward thinking, including to support those in their supply and distribution chains and enable their suppliers (including Universities and Colleges) to better meet their needs at all levels.
Meanwhile the structures to enable pupils, parents and students to make informed choices (including between degrees, apprenticeships and other routes) are undergoing radical change.
Unfortunately, the change from employer-led LEPs to Local Authority led skills plans is has all-too-often been driven by those with little knowledge of the emerging strategies of employers (local, national and/or global) who plan ahead, let alone understanding of the choices faced by the majority who not – and are therefore reliant on local access to modular training/retraining (at all levels).
So how can we ease the pain of transition
The members of the Digital Policy Alliance 21CN Skills Group plan to work with CYNAM and UCAS to bring together employers and skills providers who plan ahead and are willing to work to collectively update the careers guidance most likely to be accessed by pupils, parents and students and those who advise them. The “real” aim is, however, to then extend that co-operation into collective leadership to “help” Skills England bring the UK digital/cyber skills “system” into line with the needs of employer and students as opposed to those of funding agencies and administrators.
Ideally that “relignment” will include enabling employers to lead local, regional and national skills partnerships, using and supporting schools, colleges and universities as networked hubs for programmes from welfare-to- work, through work experience, modular apprenticeships and degrees to lifelong learning and training.
The first stage is to assemble the invitation list for a round table on 8th October to look at the material available on employer plans, student choices and provider responses and discuss how to bring it into line with expectations for next year – including use of the careers guidance section of the UCAS website. The intention is to focus on those with the authority and budgets to make a difference and those they trust to advise them and invite them to help set the objectives for the day … including build up (to make best use of the time) and follow through (pre-planning possible follow up activities involving those who already know who they wish to work in, on what).
The intention is to begin by contacting (at both operational and strategic level) those employers who are actively contributing resource to the implementation of Cyber First and Tech First and/or supporting Careers Hubs (locally and/or nationally) and/or Skills Passports and SWAPs. At the same time we will be asking them to name the skills providers they wish to see involved and also plan to contact those who are NCSC certified and/or TechSkills accredited).
It is clear, however, that we will also need to look at creating better linkages between cyber/digital and mainstream skills and employment policy, from access to careers advice and guidance in schools, through enabling NEETs to “prove” their right to work, (including in regulated roles and professions) and move from welfare to work, along career paths that will resemble climbing walls (with unstable and moving footholds) rather than the ladders of the past.
That wider look is likely to fail if it does not include a good look at the skills that will be needed by those in Government, local as well as central, to use augmented intelligence and data analytics to better target scarce resources and deliver more for less, cutting out waste and fraud, including along digital procurement and supply chains.
Please make contact if you are in a position to contribute and would like to do so. Please also include information on your own role and what you wish to achieve, including for your organisation.